EXPLORING THE DEPTHS OF OURSELVES THROUGH CREATIVE PRACTICE

Each body of my work has it’s own energetic and aesthetic quality and this group of work feels distinctly of the earth (grounded, visceral, pulsing with life) and yet it also feels very much tethered to the cosmos (celestial, ephemeral, sublime).

In her book, Coming Back To Life, Joanna Macy remarks on the poignancy of this current point in time, which is characterized by a slow yet steady awakening to the state of humanity and the state of the planet.

The last post was focused on making distinctions between the various facets of self in order to create higher levels of harmony and synergy between them. The essence being that when we consciously attend to each aspect of ourselves, make space for and get in right relations with them, we gain much more dominion over our overall experience.

Congratulations on surviving 2017! I liken the experience to accidentally getting on the highway going the wrong way and then realizing there's no way to get off or turn around. Certainly not ideal but we discover we can still move forward even in spite of the oncoming traffic.

I started this body of work in the depths of this past winter. Donald Trump had been officially sworn into office, my baby brother had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and I was in the final phases of watching one of my oldest and closest friends lose her battle to ovarian cancer. The daylight was scarce, the landscape was barren, and the naked terrain of my heart was fully exposed. I was "in it" to put it mildly.

I'm not gonna lie, the election really took me down. I haven't just been grieving all the tangible outcomes that we've already begun to see unfold. I have also been grieving something much more abstract and difficult to name

I have been following Emily Rapp's work for a long time now. She is a brilliant writer that faced an unimaginable tragedy when her son Ronan was diagnosed with Tay-Sachs Disease. Tay-Sachs causes a progressive deterioration of the nerve cells leading to an incremental loss of mental and physical faculties: seizures, blindness, inability to swallow, etc. The symptoms typically begin around 7 months and the child usually doesn't live beyond 4 years of age.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the reasons why certain people thrive under daunting circumstances and why some people struggle deeply under the same circumstances. This issue has been addressed by Malcolm Gladwell and lots of other highly intelligent problem-solvers so my intention is not to dissect it here, but merely to talk about it in relationship to my own life.

I love this poem because it reminds us of the incredible dance of life force happening at all times whether we're aware of it or not. I remember the first time I sat for meditation in which the real shift for me occurred.

One of my favorite podcasts is Dear Sugar with Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond. It’s essentially an advice column in the form of a podcast where they respond to people’s letters asking for help, which invariably lead to deep queries into the human experience. They brought on Reverend Jacqueline Lewis from NYC to address a woman’s distress over having departed from her very Christian upbringing and thus her parent’s way of being and doing in the world.

I love this quote from an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert on Longform.

“A way I’ve heard it said that is nice is that your ego is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. Your ego has a tremendous amount of energy. Wrapped up in your ego is your drive, your passion, your taste, your aspirations, your desire to leave a handprint on the world, your mojo. You need that stuff because without it there’s no energy. There’s no motive, there’s no muscle. But if you let that thing drive your whole story then you’re setting yourself up for a life of terrible suffering because the definition of an ego is that it's the part of you that can never be satisfied. Ever. “

Ultimately we have to ask ourselves, who's driving our ship? Is the basic driving force in our lives ego driven or is it driven by a deeper more authentic calling? Like Elizabeth said, we need our egos to make things happen but what's the source of that momentum?

One of my favorite thought leaders right now is Maria Popova of Brainpickings. She has singlehandedly culled a magnificent amount of old and new wisdom and makes it all relevant for what's happening in present time. She captured Parker Palmer's commencement speech that he gave at Naropa in May of 2015. There's too much good stuff in here not to share.

I have been making art since I was a little girl. My mother would buy me sketchbook after sketchbook in which I would record my dream world in images and symbols. Being a decent artist bolstered my confidence as an adolescent when there was a lack of material to tether my sense of self to.

I had the great privilege of spending a weekend with Brother David at a retreat at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe NM about ten years ago. He's one of those people that is so connected to the source of life that you can't help but experience a little transference of his joy and inner peace.

Einstein did not seek to experience insight through the vehicle of the intellect, it came the same way it does for most creatives: through intuition and inspiration. As he told one friend, "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than any talent for absorbing absolute knowledge." He added, "All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge. I believe in intuition and inspiration....at times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason." (Calaprice, 2000, 22, 287, 10).

I want to share a personal story. When I paint, I never know what the pieces are about when I'm in process with them. It's not until later, once they're finished, I can stand back and extract meaning and symbology from them.

This is such important information because in order to foster our creativity, we must give ourselves the space to let our thoughts meander, we must allow ourselves to work counter to how most of us have worked before. We need to give ourselves the permission to not know where we're going or even what we're doing in order for our creativity to emerge.

Although somewhat colored and circuitous, I can look back retrospectively and understand why my path unfolded as it has. There have been many moments of doubt when I couldn’t connect the dots at the time but that’s the beauty of time and distance. It’s both the illuminated times and the cloudy seasons that become integral cornerstones in the development of our purpose here.